Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, we have been focused on the U.S.-Mexico border, where the prospect of children being separated from their family has shocked and horrified many of us. We have been working to come up with a solution to this problem. That includes President Trump, who yesterday called on Congress to preserve family unity, while calling for a zero tolerance policy when it comes to violating our immigration laws.

I would like to provide a little bit of context for how we got here and offer a proposed solution. Just like under the Obama administration in 2014, when we saw tens of thousands of unaccompanied children coming across the border into my State of Texas from Central America through Mexico--I remember at the time President Obama called that a humanitarian crisis, and, indeed, it was--trying to find a way to deal with this flood of humanity coming across our border in a safe and humane manner was a huge challenge for the Federal Government, for local communities, like McAllen, TX, and for various faith-based and other organizations. But come they did.

Between August 1 of last year and May 31 of this year, the number of families apprehended at the southwest border rose 58 percent, compared with the same period a year earlier. Of course, just like the humanitarian crisis of 2014, most of these individuals came from Central America. I think it is important to point out that even though these are not unaccompanied minors in the same number that we saw in 2014, we are still seeing so far this year roughly 30,000 children coming across our southwestern border from across dangerous territory in Mexico and from Central America, transported by human traffickers and the cartels, for whom this is their business model. Let me explain for a minute.

Recently, an expert on this topic made the point that these criminal organizations that run children, families, and other adults across the border are ``commodity agnostic.'' That is what he said. In other words, they don't care whether it is drugs, contraband, children, or adults. Whatever it is, they are in it for the money, and they have found an incredibly profitable business model in transporting all of those commodities, if you can call them that, from Central America and across the Mexican border.

For those who are worried about the opioid crisis here in America, which we all are, it is not just about prescription drugs--that is a huge part of the problem--but it is also the heroin that is frequently substituted for the prescription drugs because it is cheap and it is more plentiful. So all of these are good reasons, in my mind, for us to be very focused on what happens at our border.

My State happens to have 1,200 miles of common border with Mexico, and we are at ground zero when it comes to the border security challenges and when it comes to the humanitarian crises and to the law enforcement challenges that go along with it.

This Friday, Senator Cruz, my colleague from Texas, and I will be traveling to Brownsville and McAllen, TX, to once again get an idea of what the facts are on the ground. We have been there many times before, of course, and have worked hand in glove with our local and State officials, with our faith-based organizations and with everybody who is concerned about what is happening at the border, including the Border Patrol, the Texas National Guard, and the like.

I want to make one point when it comes to those who enter our country in order to claim asylum, as many of these people do from Central America. They claim a fear of persecution as the basis for a claim for asylum, but those who present themselves lawfully at ports of entry-- those are the bridges that enter into the United States--can do so and claim asylum without violating any immigration laws. As Secretary Nielsen, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, said, it is only those who try to enter the country in those vast areas between the ports of entry, which is exceedingly dangerous, by the way, who violate our immigration laws when they enter the United States illegally. When they come with a child, whether it is their biological child or somebody they claim is their child--maybe the cartels have figured out that if they pair these people up, they have found another way to exploit vulnerabilities in the system--it presents the challenges that we have seen here in the last few days.

I want to emphasize that we have seen the arrival of families and children before. So none of this is new, but we do need to put what is happening now in proper context. As the Secretary of Homeland Security, Ms. Nielsen, has said, if the situation in your home country is dangerous and if you have chosen to seek asylum for your family in the United States, there is no reason for you to enter the United States illegally. We saw this during the previous policy that was since eliminated by the Obama administration of Cuban refugees who, because of a unique policy called ``wet foot, dry foot,'' once they crossed over our ports of entry, they were entitled to seek refuge in the United States under the laws at the time. So none of this is new.

As I said, people with a credible fear of persecution in their home countries may present their claims through a normal, well-defined process. There is no reason for somebody to expose themselves, much less their children, to the dangerous, remote regions--areas I call the wild, wild west--down along the border in order to try to sneak through by illicit means.

But people do sometimes falsely claim a credible fear of persecution. In other words, they don't qualify for asylum. So that is why it is so important for us to give them an opportunity and to insist that they present those claims to an immigration judge on a timely basis so those claims can be properly evaluated.

The Trump administration has made the very commonsensical decision to have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to illegal immigration. They have made the decision to fully enforce our laws by prosecuting adults in criminal courts when they are apprehended crossing our borders illegally. In my opinion, that is exactly the right decision--enforce the laws as written. The relevant laws--the ones that criminalize illegal crossings--have been on the books for a long time. They are a product of congressional action and Presidential approval, like all legislation. These are not something that President Trump created out of whole cloth, as some people would have you believe. But the truth is that often these laws were not enforced by previous administrations and, particularly, when families were involved. Now that they are being enforced, the adults are, unfortunately, under the status quo, separated from families as part of the legal process as it plays itself out. It is not because of any desire to separate families and children, but rather because of previous Federal court decisions, consent decrees, and statutes that Congress has passed that require children to be placed in a separate, safe setting. In other words, we don't want to place children in a jail cell with hardened, potentially violent criminals because the adult that brought them into the country has violated our criminal laws. So putting the children in a safe, separate setting was really motivated by the best of intentions.

The relevant authorities are important to acknowledge because, as the New York Times has stated this last weekend, contrary to what you may have heard, ``technically, there is no Trump administration policy stating that illegal border crossers must be separated from their children.''

What there are, instead, are many variables that are hard to disentangle from one another, and, I think, unfortunately, those who would like to create a false narrative here have taken advantage of the complexity of these laws and the situation in order to claim some sort of sinister intent to tear children away from their parents unnecessarily. That is not the goal. In fact our goal is just the opposite: How do we keep these children with their families, pending the decision by an immigration judge of whether or not they have a viable claim to asylum or some other benefit.

The so-called Flores agreement is one of those laws that are required to be observed which requires that children can be held no longer than 20 days. A Ninth Circuit opinion applies the Flores bill to family units, protracted timelines for asylum claims, limited detention facilities, and a division of responsibility among ICE, or Immigration and Custom Enforcement, Health and Human Services, and other agencies. All of this adds to the complexity of this situation.

Most of these factors are pretty uncontroversial. I think every Member will agree with the Trump administration that we should never place children in prisons or jails with hardened, potentially violent criminals when their parents are being lawfully prosecuted for entering the country illegally.

We need to see that this is how we got to where we are now. They are entirely reasonable decisions that seemed to make sense at the time-- that children should not be held for any longer than is strictly necessary, that they should never be detained with adults in a jail cell in potentially dangerous circumstances. A lot of that seemed to make sense at the time. By the same token, I and many others certainly don't want family members to be separated from one another as a consequence of officials doing their duty and enforcing the laws they are sworn to uphold.

I know Customs and Border Protection leaders like Manny Padilla, chief of the Rio Grande Valley sector, and David Higgerson, and all of the other men and women who work under them in the Rio Grande Valley, are trying to do their job. They are trying to enforce the law. That is what we have asked them to do. That is their duty. It is a good thing, and I think we should all appreciate their attempt to do so in a very complex environment.

This is where I have some questions for the minority leader Senator Schumer and others. Senator Feinstein, my friend from California whom I have worked with on a number of pieces of legislation, secured the support of all Members of the Democratic side of the aisle on a piece of legislation which does nothing to ensure that the law will be enforced. Sure, it purports to deal with family separation but basically provides a get-out-of-jail-free card to any adult who illegally crosses the border. In fact, they go from a zero tolerance program by President Trump's administration to a zero enforcement program, thus creating an incentive for people to illegally immigrate across the border and making it almost impossible for law enforcement to enforce our immigration laws. That will continue to be a draw on people from different parts of the world who would love to move to the United States.

We can be sympathetic. We can be concerned. We should do everything within our power to help them so they can live in their own country safely, but we know we simply can't have an open border policy so anybody and everybody who wants to move to the United States can do so. That is why we have exceptions like asylum claims that have to be decided by an immigration judge.

Yesterday, Senator Schumer said President Trump alone could fix this situation by signing a Presidential order, but even though the President has stated his decision to do so, I think that is likely not going to be decided finally by the President but rather by the courts when that Executive order is challenged based on the other legal considerations I mentioned a moment ago: the Ninth Circuit decision, a consent decree in the Flores case, and other statutes.

I don't think our friend, the Democratic leader, actually believes President Trump can do this by a flick of a pen, as he said; otherwise, he wouldn't have cosponsored the bill by the Senator from California to address this situation. Why in the world would he propose legislation if he actually sincerely believes the President alone can fix this problem?

The truth is, we in Congress and the President have a shared responsibility and a role to play in addressing this crisis at the border, but the result of the proposal by the Senator from California, embraced and cosponsored by the Democratic leader, is that it makes it impossible to enforce the laws Congress has written when it comes to adults illegally entering the United States when they are accompanied by a child.

We should not be under any illusion that the criminal organizations that facilitate the movement of people from other countries into the United States--they understand these gaps in our laws. That is why they sent tens of thousands of unaccompanied children into the United States in 2014, creating that humanitarian crisis. They know well that because of the gaps in our law that allow adults with children to be treated differently, they are exploiting that for financial gain.

The result of the proposal by the minority leader and our Democratic colleagues means it is impossible to enforce laws that Congress has written. Ending zero tolerance means ignoring the law, and that amounts to ignoring the will of the people who put Members of Congress in office and ending our respect for the rule of law. Ending zero tolerance, as they would seek to do, means tolerating criminal activity. As I mentioned, these are organized criminal organizations-- they are sometimes called transnational criminal organizations--and they will trade in anything that makes them money: People, guns, drugs, any sort of contraband we can imagine. Not applying the law to illegal entry does nothing but fuel them and feed their money machine, which is why they continue to do what they do.

The other concern I have with the legislation proposed by our Democratic colleagues, even though they have said only the President can fix it, is that while legislation from the Senator from California does seek to keep families together--a goal we share--it doesn't specify where those families should be held. That is a big problem because when it comes to the safety of these children, we don't want to leave that open to interpretation or misunderstanding. We want to be sure and clear that these families are kept in separate residential housing facilities, away from hardened and potentially violent criminals, but our Democratic colleagues' bill that every single one of the Democrats in the Senate has signed on to doesn't even address that. As I said, in fact, their bill would likely result in many adults entering the United States illegally getting off scot-free because of the no enforcement zone, basically extending within up to 120 miles from the border. Basically, Federal law enforcement authorities, not just the Border Patrol but the FBI, the U.S. attorneys, and others, would be essentially prohibited from prosecuting anybody for violation of our laws.

Now, all of us sat up and paid close attention when former First Lady Laura Bush and the current First Lady Melania Trump expressed their concerns about family separation and called on us to find a better way to answer the current crisis, and I agree with them. In fact, we have gotten off to a pretty good start.

Led by our colleague from North Carolina, some of our colleagues and I, just a few minutes ago, introduced a bill called the Keep Families Together and Enforce the Law Act. The goals of this legislation are pretty straightforward: keep families together in safe, secure facilities while their cases are waiting to be decided by a court.

We set mandatory standards of care for family residential centers to make sure they are hygienic and safe and the sort of place where we can treat people compassionately.

We also authorize 225 new immigration judges because of the huge backlog that makes it hard to handle all the cases that come across the border. We give these families a chance to move to the head of the line to get their cases decided on an expedited basis so that while they are being detained in these safe, secure, family facilities, their cases can be decided quickly. Also, if they are entitled to an immigration benefit like asylum, they could be afforded that on a reasonable timetable and not left in limbo for any longer than absolutely necessary.

Now, I believe, talking to my friend the senior Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, that these are elements of a bill we might be able to agree to, Democrats and Republicans, in order to address the common concerns we have about family separation. Throughout the course of our discussions, though, it has become clear this is something we all believe; that families crossing the border should be kept together. Where we may differ is whether that should also go along with a joint commitment to enforce our immigration laws, but, as I said earlier, this is not an either-or situation. We can keep parents and children together while, at the same time, remaining resolute in enforcing our immigration laws--something I believe we should do.

The Trump administration has said it will not tolerate any violation of those laws and that all offenders will remain on the table for prosecution, but there is no reason for our Democratic colleagues to oppose what I have laid out. Either we are or we are not a nation of laws, with a government that enforces those laws, or we are a nation with no law and open borders; simply waving through anybody who wants to come into the country at their discretion.

So I would urge all of our colleagues to work together to continue talking about and supporting a bill that represents these shared values. If we come together, we can resolve the situation swiftly and ensure that these children are kept together with their families and, as I said, that they can be expeditiously presented before an immigration judge so they can present any legitimate claim they may have to any immigration benefit. I think that is a commonsense solution to this problem, and I look forward to our colleagues working together to try to solve it.

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Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator Tennessee (Mr. Corker) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

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Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker). and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

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